Coma Movie Review Summary

Actors:Genevieve Bujold, Richard Widmark, Michael Douglas, Rip Torn

Detailed plot synopsis reviews of Coma

Would you have elective surgery at prestigious Boston General after six young, healthy patients recently went brain-dead? Suppose those unfortunate patients had each succumbed in the same operating room? That's exactly what happens in Robin Cook's 1978 thriller, “Coma,” terrifyingly directed by Michael Crighton.

This gruesome discovery motivates some singularly dogged detective work by Dr. Susan Wheeler (Bujold) who concludes that these mishaps indeed all happened in “Operating Room 8.” But even then, her lover/confidant Dr. Mark Bellows (Douglas) dismisses her theory as “coincidence.” But Sue is determined to investigate further, risking her reputation. Eventually, in the bowels of the hospital, she locates the source of the noxious gas being piped into OR8.

In a haunting scene, Sue sneaks into Jefferson Institute, where brain-dead humans are suspended horizontally from the ceiling in a huge “warehouse.” Computer connections feed them and make immediate adjustments based on changes in vital signs. Of course, when visitors come, the patients are put in mock rooms, a luxury which could never occur in an “institute” practicing the nefarious but highly profitable trafficking of human body parts.

Sue's final confidant is Dr. George A. Harris (Widmark), Head of Surgery. As Dr. Harris detachedly explains that, “sometimes it is necessary to sacrifice the few for the good of the many,” Sue realizes too late that she is the next victim. Dr. Harris poisons her to mimic acute symptoms, then insists on performing the operation himself. As Sue valiantly tries to fight the anesthesia, she sees Dr. Harris in menacing blurry images, as she helplessly awaits a rescue.

The review of this Movie prepared by Angry Jim Magin

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